Summary

Desert Knights is a 7‐day event that was designed to promote cross‐border tourism activities in the Ai/Ais Richtersveld Transfrontier Park. The event combines night‐time mountain biking and a day of canoeing and aims to contribute towards unlocking the tourism potential of the park through staging of a world class annual multi-stage MTB event. Proceeds of the tour will support joint conservation activities of this unique Transfrontier Park.

Impacts

The event was initially piloted over two years (2011 and 2012) where logistics and market demand were tested, and journalists and operators were invited to participate and profile the event. As a result, for the 2014 tour, 100 tourists had signed up within 2 weeks of bookings opening, and from 2015 two events will now be held each year.